Katja writes
My name is Katja and I am a Senior at University in Germany.
>For my final exams I have to turn in a paper, which has to be about
>80 pages long on any interesting subject that has to do with my
>studies. As I am studying English, besides Italian, I chose the book
>"The Corn King and the Spring Queen" by Naomi Mitchison to write my
>report on. Besidse some newspaper articles I have not yet found any
>other secondary literature on this book, and I wonder if you could
>give me some further information on books, articles ets. that relate
>to that book
On the whole Mitchison has been sadly neglected as a subject of critical study
except for some work on her later sf novels such as 'Memoirs of a Space Woman'
and 'Solution Three'. This may relate to the rather low status which
historical fiction (even as transformed from forsooth-pishtushery by NM)
holds--though I don't notice many studies of her contemporary (1930s)
social-problems novel 'We Have Been Warned' either. Also she was very
prolific, which somehow tends to lessen critical respect? Doesn't fit readily
into any 'modernist' canon even when revised to include women.
I once came across a copy of the ?1980s US p/back reprint under the title
'The Barbarian' (yuck, huh?) in a women's bookshop, on the flyleaf someone had
pencilled 'not politically correct'....
There is a bio of NM by Jill Benton which tho rather chatty and not (as I
recall) deeply analytical does have quite a lot on CK & SQ (though possibly
purely in respect of the biog circumstances of its writing--some while since I
read it) and there is a major biographical study of NM (100 this year I
believe and still going strong) coming out shortly from Jenni Calder.
I have among my own files a rather brief though highly positive review of
CK&SQ by Stella Browne published in the birth control/sex reform periodical
'The New Generation'. (NM was a great pillar of the UK b-c movement and once
attended the Malthusian Ball wearing earrings made out of contraceptives [this
story may be apocryphal])
There are also comments about CK&SQ, the writing of historical fiction, the
initial critical response etc, in NM's own autobiographies, principally 'You
May Well Ask' (on the interwar years).
Lesley
Lesley_Hall@msn.com
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